Jimmies baseball loses 4-3 to La Sierra in NSAA tourney

DICKINSON, N.D. — The University of Jamestown baseball team saw its run at the North Star Athletic Association Tournament come to an end with a 4-3 loss to La Sierra University (California) on Friday, May 2, at Dickinson State University’s Dakota Community Bank and Trust Ballpark.

The Jimmies two losses at the conference tournament both came in one run games.

“There’s no question that the last two days have been frustrating,” Jimmies head coach Tom Hager said. “I think the players feel that way, the coaches feel that way. At the end of the day all we ask the players and coaches give us everything they’ve got, they give us the effort and we got the effort, we just didn’t get the timely hits or make the big pitch when we needed to. So we all take responsibility for that but it didn’t go our way.”

The Jimmies (32-18) got off to another fast start this season when Ryan Muizelaar hit a single to score a run three batters into the game and give his team a 1-0 lead. The score stayed that way until the third inning when the Golden Eagles’ Dean Samuel hit a three-run shot to left-center to push his team in front 3-1.

Muizelaar continued his big season in the fifth when he hit another single to bring it to within one at 3-2. The Jimmies kept pushing and tied the game up in the sixth on an RBI groundout to make it 3-3.

Both teams’ pitchers kept their opponents in check until the bottom of the ninth when Samuel continued to help his team at the plate, his time with a bloop single to center to score the runner from third and give his team the 4-3 win.

“Give their guy credit. He did a nice job of putting the ball in play. We had to be in a certain depth to be able to throw a guy out at the plate and the ball that he hit happened to drop in and there wasn’t much we could do about it,” Hager said. “So give them credit for coming up with the big hit when they needed to.”

The Jimmies starter was Avery Liestman who went 7.2 giving up three runs on eight hits while striking out seven and walking three hitters. He was relieved by Ben Bohlmann who went 0.2 giving up one run on two hits while striking out two and walking two. The Golden Eagles (20-19) starting pitcher was Ryan Cole who pitched 8.0 giving up two earned runs on 10 hits, while walking one and striking out five Jimmies. He was relieved by Nico Masucci who threw 1.0 perfect inning.

The Jimmies will now have to wait and see if they get an at-large bid to the NAIA National Championships starting on Monday, May 12.

UJ 3, LSU 4

 UJ: 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0–3 10 0

LSU: 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 1–4 10 2

WP: Nico Masucci (4-1), LP: Ben Bohlmann (2-4)

Hello,
My name is Max O'Neill. I am a Sports Reporter at The Jamestown Sun. I am a native New Yorker, who graduated from Ithaca College in 2020 with a degree in Television-Radio.